Which would you choose: Much Ado about Nothing or The Taming of the Shrew?

[cintinative]

See the poll!

[Lecka]

I think I would pick Twelfth Night if it were a choice.  

[Lecka]

I like A Midsummer Night’s Dream because it is in Dead Poet’s Society, too.  

[Lecka]

I would not have Taming of the Shrew on my list, but I think Much Ado About Nothing would be a good choice.  

[Momto6inIN]

I've never read Taming of the Shrew but our drama troupe performed Much Ado About Nothing, so I'm intimately familiar with it and would be much more confident teaching it. There are worse reasons for choosing one over the other lol 😉

[cintinative]

2 hours ago, Lecka said:

I think I would pick Twelfth Night if it were a choice.  

We've already covered it. 😃

[BusyMom5]

My kids liked The Taming of the Shrew with Liz Taylor.  Either would be good- probably doing Much Ado About Nothing this year! 

[katilac]

The Taming of the Shrew is a tough go. I think the problematic themes and actions are so difficult to understand that it's usually better left to an older student (and an experienced teacher). 

Is Shakespeare being disruptive? Yes, but digging into the subversive femininity isn't easy, and some disturbing things are played for comedy. Different times, sure, but still troubling. I wouldn't teach it in high school without committing to a deep dive as a teacher. 

tl;dr: Much Ado About Nothing 

[Rosie_0801]

If you don't want to talk about domestic violence, don't pick Taming of the Shrew.

[Eilonwy]

What other plays have you done?

[cintinative]

1 minute ago, Eilonwy said:

What other plays have you done?

Hamlet

MacBeth

A Midsummer Night's Dream (saw in theatre)

Twelfth Night (saw in theatre)

My oldest said he didn't want to do Taming of the Shrew (I didn't expect an opinion), so we are most likely doing Much Ado about Nothing.

[cintinative]

8 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:

If you don't want to talk about domestic violence, don't pick Taming of the Shrew.

Thanks for this. It's been a long time since I have seen it and I have only fuzzy recollections.

[Eilonwy]

10 minutes ago, cintinative said:

Hamlet

MacBeth

We did Hamlet this summer (which I picked because our local Shakespeare group was playing it) and it worked better than I expected, so maybe we’ll try MacBeth next.  We enjoyed Twelfth Night and Midsummer Night’s Dream too. 

[EKS]

I'd go with Taming of the Shrew precisely because it is problematic.

[Eilonwy]

I find Much Ado more fun than Taming of the Shrew, so I would pick it based on that.  You seem to have a good balance of comedy and tragedy.  As an alternative, maybe a historical one, or a Roman one? 

[8filltheheart]

You could consider Comedy of Errors.

[serendipitous journey]

5 hours ago, EKS said:

I'd go with Taming of the Shrew precisely because it is problematic.

I polled for Much Ado, but agree with this.  Much Ado About Nothing would be more fun; actually working through Taming would be a serious exercise in critical thinking and pry those little minds open a bit more.  I just think you'd have heavy lifting on the prying. 

[Farrar]

I don't know if there's any way to effectively perform Shrew in a modern context anymore. I've seen it twice in the last decade or so and both times it was genuinely uncomfortable despite attempts to give the actors some ways to work with the material. I'm sort of at the point where I think it can't effectively be done anymore. It's not that funny comparatively and the story just falls flat now. It's mostly useful as a relic and less as a living play at this point. I mean, that's fine. I'm not saying never read Shrew -- and I know you're talking about studying and reading it, not performing it. But I don't see it having much future. Or being a great example of the bard. I don't think it's some amazing exercise in critical thinking either that would somehow overcome the play's flaws. If you had done even more Shakespeare, then sure. But you've done four other plays. This would be so much further down my list for a next Shakespeare to do than #5. 

I do want to point out that Much Ado is ALSO one of the more problematic plays. The slut-shaming is a pretty major plot point. But it's nothing on the level of Shrew. And it has lots of other parts that absolutely make up for it that Shrew doesn't have. It's genuinely hilarious. I think it's one of Shakespeare's funniest. And Beatrice is one of Shakespeare's best women and she never gets truncated like Kate. 

That said, if you wanted to round out your Shakespeare list, you haven't done Tempest, which is very different. Or As You Like It, which is just lovely. I mean, I enjoy Much Ado more, but As You Like It is so good. It's really the superior play in many ways. Plus, you haven't done any of the histories. And if you wanted to dive into a Shakespeare that's problematic but worth the read to think about issues, I'd do Merchant of Venice before I'd do Shrew.

[cintinative]

3 hours ago, Farrar said:

 

That said, if you wanted to round out your Shakespeare list, you haven't done Tempest, which is very different. Or As You Like It, which is just lovely. I mean, I enjoy Much Ado more, but As You Like It is so good. It's really the superior play in many ways. Plus, you haven't done any of the histories. And if you wanted to dive into a Shakespeare that's problematic but worth the read to think about issues, I'd do Merchant of Venice before I'd do Shrew.

The Merchant of Venice was recommended by WTM but I keep hearing that is problematic, so I have been concerned about covering it.  That was my original intention though--so maybe I should circle back to look at that.

[EKS]

45 minutes ago, cintinative said:

The Merchant of Venice was recommended by WTM but I keep hearing that is problematic, so I have been concerned about covering it. 

Merchant is good too--and you already know my feelings about things being problematic!

[Frances]

I’ve seen multiple productions of Much Ado about Nothing. The best one was outdoors, set in the US during WWII, and before it started they had a flyover of historic military aircraft.